"We are very pleased to partner with an industry leader like i2," said William Haser, vice president and chief information officer, North and South America, for Tenneco Automotive. "We chose i2 to help us expand our Internet presence not only for its technical expertise and methodology but the extensive experience i2 has in developing business-to-business Internet applications for the automotive industry."

Under the agreement, i2 will pursue an accelerated timetable to deliver plans that Tenneco Automotive can implement during the second half of 2000 to expand the company's Internet initiatives.

i2 will create an enterprise e-business strategy that targets profitability by focusing on five e-business areas:

In addition, i2 will assist Tenneco Automotive in evaluating how best to participate in the recently announced Automotive Industry Exchange to gain the greatest value.

"We expect these initiatives will build on the experience we already have with e-Commerce," said Haser. "That includes two pilot Internet sites we have in operation and which we plan to expand and make generally available later this year."

One of the pilot sites, TA-Direct.com, is being evaluated by a test group of customers. It allows users to place orders for Tenneco Automotive's exhaust system parts, as well as to check on the status of existing orders. The second pilot site, Tasupplier.com, is under development and currently provides policy guidance for Tenneco Automotive's vendors.

Tenneco Automotive is a $3.3 billion manufacturing company headquartered in Lake Forest, Ill., with 24,000 employees worldwide. Tenneco Automotive is one of the world's largest producers and marketers of ride control and exhaust systems and products, which are sold under the Monroe(R) and Walker(R) global brand names. Among its products are Sensa-Trac(R) and Reflex(R) shocks and struts, Rancho(R) shock absorbers, Walker(R) Quiet-Flow(TM) mufflers and DynoMax(TM) performance exhaust products, and Monroe(R) Clevite(TM) vibration control components.